Pennsylvania apprenticeship program expands to include training to plug old gas wells

Pennsylvania has more than 350,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, and state officials want more people trained to plug them.

To that end, the Shapiro administration and the United Mine Workers of America announced a new program this week which will register and train apprentices to plug wells.

It will be run from the UMWA’s Career Center Ruff Creek Training Center in Greene County, providing prospective apprentices with the knowledge to plug abandoned wells that have the potential to cause health, safety and environmental concerns.

“Sooner or later, every orphaned well is going to be a threat to the environment and public health, and we need people with the skills and training to plug the wells and restore the surrounding landscape,” said acting Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Jessica Shirley. “In addition to removing the threat that old wells pose, some active wells could find new life as geothermal wells, capturing buried heat for clean energy.”

Shirley said the state’s unplugged wells account for 8% of Pennsylvania’s total methane emissions.

DEP has plugged more than 250 wells during Shapiro’s term in office, more than have been plugged over the last nine years combined, state officials said. Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, visited a Murrysville family that discovered an old, leaking well on their property and reached out to state officials to have it capped.

The Gas Well Capping Technician program is registered with the state’s Apprenticeship and Training Office within the state labor department. Training will include safety, well capping techniques, cement properties and skills and land remediation.

UMWA Career Center Executive Director Clemmy Allen said the union is excited about the program.

“Well-capping technician is one of the in-demand occupations in which dislocated coal miners and their families, as well as all those residing in rural mining communities of Appalachia, can train for without relocating,” Allen said.

The program is one of 53 such registered apprenticeships created by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry since 2023, and more than 15,600 apprentices are currently active across all labor disciplines.

In 2022 the U.S. Department of the Interior awarded Pennsylvania an initial grant of $25 million to plug orphaned and abandoned gas wells.

“This is a positive step toward addressing unemployment in Appalachia’s coal mining communities,” said UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts. “The program will not only help stop leaking gas and oil wells but also provide workers with family-sustaining wages. Capping abandoned and orphaned wells is expected to take decades.”

For more on the state’s registered apprenticeship program, see PACareerLink.pa.gov.